"Tiens--tiens!" interposed Jean Jolicoeur, the landlord. "It is not
harm to him. He drink all day, an' he walk a crack like a bee-line."

"He's got the handsomest wife in this city. If I was him, I'd think more
of myself," answered the Englishman.

"How you think more--hein? You not come down more to my saloon?"

"No, I wouldn't come to your saloon, and I wouldn't go to Theophile
Charlemagne's shebang at the Cote Dorion."

"You not like Charlemagne's hotel?" said a huge black-bearded pilot,
standing beside the landlord. "Oh, I like Charlemagne's hotel, and I
like to talk to Suzon Charlemagne, but I'm not married, Rouge Gosselin--"

"If he go to Charlemagne's hotel, and talk some more too mooch to dat
Suzon Charlemagne, he will lose dat glass out of his eye," interrupted
Rouge Gosselin.

"Who say he been at dat place?" said Jean Jolicoeur. "He bin dere four
times las' month, and dat Suzon Charlemagne talk'bout him ever since.
When dat Narcisse Bovin and Jacques Gravel come down de river, he better
keep away from dat Cote Dorion," sputtered Rouge Gosselin. "Dat's a long
story short, all de same for you--bagosh!"

Rouge Gosselin flung off his glass of white whiskey, and threw after it a
glass of cold water.

"Tiens! you know not M'sieu' Charley Steele," said Jean Jolicoeur, and
turned on his heel, nodding his head sagely.